50 Greatest Composers

In 2019, BBC Music Magazine asked 174 composers to name who they thought were the greatest composers. Each was allowed to choose 5 composers, and the criteria for greatness was originality, impact, craftsmanship, and sheer enjoyability. Which composers made it on this list?

To help, their time period has been given. The time periods are early music, renaissance, baroque, classical, romantic, modern.

Impressionist counts as Modern

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Last updated: February 24, 2023

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First submitted	February 24, 2023
Times taken	47
Average score	34.0%
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First Letter of their Last Name	Time Period	Answer
B	Baroque	Johann Sebastian Bach
S	Modern	Igor Stravinsky
B	Classical/Romantic	Ludwig van Beethoven
M	Classical	Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
D	Modern	Claude Debussy
L	Modern	Gyorgy Ligeti
M	Romantic	Gustav Mahler
W	Romantic	Richard Wagner
R	Modern	Maurice Ravel
M	Renaissance/Baroque	Claudio Monteverdi
B	Modern	Benjamin Britten
S	Romantic	Jean Sibelius
M	Modern	Olivier Messiaen
B	Modern	Bela Bartok
S	Modern	Dmitry Shostakovich
H	Classical	Joseph Haydn
S	Modern	Kaija Saariaho
B	Romantic	Johannes Brahms
R	Modern	Steve Reich
C	Romantic	Frederic Chopin
W	Modern	Ralph Vaughan Williams
S	Modern	Arnold Schoenberg
G	Renaissance	Carlo Gesualdo
J	Romantic/Modern	Leos Janáĉek
S	Classical/Romantic	Franz Schubert

First Letter of their Last Name	Time Period	Answer
G	Modern	George Gershwin
G	Modern	Philip Glass
I	Modern	Charles Ives
P	Modern	Sergei Prokofiev
L	Modern	Witold Lutoslawski
C	Modern	John Cage
T	Romantic	Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky
B	Romantic	Alban Berg
F	Modern	Morton Feldman
V	Modern	Edgar Varèse
W	Modern	Anton Webern
B	Renaissance	William Byrd
S	Romantic/Modern	Richard Strauss
V	Romantic	Giuseppe Verdi
E	Romantic/Modern	Edward Elgar
B	Modern	Harrison Birtwistle
K	Modern	Oliver Knussen
S	Modern	Stephen Sondheim
S	Modern	Karlheinz Stockhausen
S	Romantic/Modern	Erik Satie
T	Renaissance	Thomas Tallis
vB	Early Music	Hildegard von Bingen
B	Modern	Pierre Boulez
S	Romantic	Robert Schumann
R	Romantic	Sergei Rachmaninoff